


The World Is Quiet Here

by wildeisms



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (Delores with an E bc that's what the subtitles for the show say), (it's five during the apocalypse what do you expect), Angst, Apocalypse, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Angst, Ficlet, Gen, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildeisms/pseuds/wildeisms
Summary: Five is many things and not all of them are good. But one thing he is not and will never be is a pessimist. A realist, yes, but if the apocalypse wants to claim him, he will not make things easy for it.or, Five survives in the wastelands of the apocalypse.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 31





	The World Is Quiet Here

**Author's Note:**

> So I read [this post](https://kakakuroo.tumblr.com/post/634088996749852673/oh-i-just-hurt-my-own-feelings-dont-think-about) from kakakuroo on tumblr and it inspired me to write about the silence of the apocalypse. I definitely didn't stick to the post exactly but sometimes the words just do their own thing and this is what we ended up with. 
> 
> Yes I took this title from ASOUE and no I'm not going to apologise for that.

The end of the world is a quiet affair.

Five supposes the initial carnage must have been loud, the sounds of chaos and devastation as buildings crumbled and bodies left in the wake of a mysterious  _ something _ . He can imagine the blaring alarms and echoing screams. But the alarms have long since run out of power and the screams have all ended with the last breath torn from the lungs of every last human on Earth.

The silence feels unnatural at first. It takes him too long to realise that it is anything but. This is how the world truly is, with no one and nothing trying to fill the emptiness.

His ears grow sharp as he learns to listen to it. He learns to identify the sound of a cockroach scuttling through rubble and the drip drip drip of a water source from several feet away, learns how to tell the difference between the crackling of his fire and the sound of something moving across dry leaves. There are so few living creatures around that he wonders idly if he has driven any to extinction, if he is now the apex predator of the planet. He can’t bring himself to care all that much.

The first time he tried eating ants, he remembered how upset Vanya would get when they were kids and someone stepped on them -  _ they’re just trying to get home! Now all the others don’t have their friend anymore! _ \- but he had soon run out of sympathy for those ants entirely. There are enough of them. They aren’t alone. And he needs to eat. When all an ant has left of its loved ones is a book and a pile of rubble filled with corpses, perhaps he will feel some sympathy for it. Until then, he knows his only way home is to figure it out for himself, and he can’t solve anything (or use his powers) if he starves to death. He feels so close to starvation so much of the time that he can’t remember what it’s like to be full. 

He doesn’t know how he’ll get back. But he will. He has to. Or else what is the point of any of this? Why not just join the lifeless bodies on the ground and let the apocalypse claim him as her final victim, her triumph over humanity? Why not return to the only place he has ever called home, curl up with the cold bodies of his siblings, and submit?

Five is many things and not all of them are good. But one thing he is not and will never be is a pessimist. A realist, yes, but if the apocalypse wants to claim him, he will not make things easy for it. He will not let it take his voice. So he talks, not to make noise but so that he won’t forget how. Call it stubbornness or determination, he doesn’t care. There’s no one around to call him anything anymore (he doesn’t know when that will stop hurting and maybe it never will).

He finds the mannequin with the kind face not long after he accepts the quiet and though he doesn’t know why, he’s drawn to it. Talking to an object is hardly better than talking to oneself when it comes to madness, but it helps him to rationalise.  _ She _ helps him to rationalise. 

He names her Delores.

The dehydration makes his lips bleed when he says her name. The cold that comes with the sunset makes him shiver as he curls up with her in his arms. The ache in his body makes him feel as solid as Delores is. But he holds on. She becomes an anchor, something else the apocalypse can’t take from him. There are so few things in that category and he holds onto every one of them with everything he has, with a fierceness to rival the end of the world itself.

In his mind, she develops a voice. His rational side knows that she can’t speak, but it hardly matters. He learns to listen to her as he listens to the wastelands, to hear what an untrained ear could never. The world is quiet, but never truly silent. 


End file.
